4109 days ago
You may remember that I suggested to you as a new year resolution/ small business tip that you review your contracts with key suppliers as a way to boost profitability. I drink my own medicine and so at Clerkenwell’s finest Celtic Italian restaurant, The Real Man Pizza Company , I have started to practice what I preach.
In case you have not taken my advice, I offer this as a tale of encouragement.
The cost base at Real Man can be split roughly speaking property 4, staff 6 all other costs 5. We will address the property issue in time – I believe our rates are too high and an appeal should be made in due course. Staff – there is nothing that can be done and so that leaves suppliers, all of whom have been in place for an absolute eternity. In such a scenario there is a danger of complacency with suppliers sticking in annual increases on the assumption that nothing will every change.
Suppliers all claim to be your friends. Long standing relationship, blah, blh, blah. The reality is they are out to maximise margins just like you are.
4110 days ago
I am sitting in Real Man Pizza Company trying to catch up on my writing backlog before heading to Paddington and yet again the bastards at Camden Council have sent little men to dig upo the road outside our door. The drill is incredibly load. You would think there was gold buried on Clerkenwell Road as this is about the tenth time in two years that a small patch of tarmac has been dug up and resurfaced. I am assured that the racket will end soon but what is the point? Perhaps it is a cunning job creation scheme where Camden pays men overtime rates at weekends to dig up the same few square metres, resurface and then dig up again every few months.
I have no idea. I just feel that Camden Council hates me. Why can’t they go and plague some of the other restaurants around here and drive away their customers for a change? I am promised the pain will within an hour or so. Meanwhile I have turned the music up full blast so poor Aldo is suffering a CD Punk Compilation 2 prepared by my friend Paul in the IOM and which we play on Monday evenings as well as the drilling.
